Lots of people keep calling me a Tory, some jokingly and some serious. This is getting out of hand (I take great offence to being equated with an arch enemy) and I want to explain why coalition government doesn’t make me (or any other Lib Dem) a Conservative douche-bag.
Let’s go over (one more time) the idea of coalition governments, and deal with why Labour can’t take what happened. When no party secures an outright majority, it is up to the party leaders to negotiate (as the Labour, Green and Nationalist parties agreed, in early May at least.) The priority in general is to create a stable-ish government, perhaps based on confidence and supply; a small number of manifesto concessions in exchange for budget votes. However, in a time of crisis (the War, for example) a coalition is formed, so that multiple parties have input into the running of the situation.
Whether or not you accept that the recession/deficit ”crisis” was such an emergency situation, the latter is preferable to the former because stable government means better value for taxpayers; the bond market is nicer to stable governments than it is to unstable ones. For a coalition to be stable, however, each side needs to know that it won something. The Labour party line is that Lib Dems won nothing, and are helping the Tories be Tories just for ministerial car perks. This is utter nonsense; Lib Dem MPs and Peers would not have voted for this coalition (no votes against, only abstentions) if they didn’t think we had made significant ground.
So why are Labour so insistant? I think the problem is that the Labour party always thought of the “Liberals”, especially after the merger with a Labour splinter group, as a subset of the Labour party. Rebellious, a bit posh, but ultimately socialists deep down, and would only ever side with Labour in a hung parliament. When we negotiated with the Tories, the things we won weren’t things that Labour value; greater personal freedoms and the repeal of state-terror laws, more efficient public services run by people on the ground rather than known-it-alls in Whitehall, a fairer voting system (Labour do the best out of the current status quo,) an elected House of Lords.
These are things that matter a great deal to people who value the fair distribution of power and influence, as well as the fair distribution of wealth, but mean nothing to the power hoarding nonsense-garbling New Labour behemoth. The Lib Dems are in this coalition because the things we won are important to us; just as important as social justice. Labour don’t believe us because they don’t agree.
I will oppose many of the things this Government will do, just as I have opposed some of the Lib Dem leadership’s actions and all the Tory nonsense-mongering in the past — however well Clegg does in taming the Cameron in the next few months or years he still won’t be able to herd this cat! — but, sorry Labour, I will be remaining a Lib Dem because constructive dissent, a good debate and a real argument are what my party is all about. I can quite happily pay my membership subs and deliver focus leaflets while disagreeing with some words or actions of some members; because my voice counts too. If I were to join the red team, I would be drowned in the all consuming ridiculousness that your local members have to put up with; I would no longer be allowed to speak at conference, I would be persecuted by local party officials, and I would be denied access to an affiliated trade union because I work on the wrong side of the arbitrary tribalist barriers erected for some parts of some companies, sometimes.
No thanks, I’m a Lib Dem.
It depends on how you see the debate. A coalition government is, by it’s very nature, a compromise. Unfortunately, the things that that Lib Dems seem willing to compromise on (the NHS, Education and Welfare) are the issues that matter most to me, and to a lot of people who used to call themselves Lib Dem.
You mention “greater personal freedoms, repeal of terror laws and more efficient public services” as things that we won. The Tory manifesto pledged a lot of those things anyway – including ID cards, and changes to policing.
‘More efficient public services’ is a hideous Orwellian double-speak for cutting public services, and for the increasing privatisation of public services (started under Labour, but now enlarged massively. Especially with the NHS.)
So far, I’m really disappointed. I don’t think the Lib Dems are influencing policy enough, especially not to make up for the sacrifices that are being made. And there’s evidence that most Lid Dem voters agree with me:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/8854870.stm
It depends on how you see the compromise. We stood on a manifesto of four key fairness principals, and we have made sure we are delivering on part of each of them (with some exceptions where the Tories have ruined any benefit there would have been…like the tax fairness.)
The Tory manifesto did not contain a more nuanced policing policy, it didn’t contain a freedom bill, it didn’t contain the “Real Women” campaign to remove unrealistic photoshopping and ultra-thinness from advertising – we have made progress in many areas (probably in fairness simply because the Tories don’t have anything against this stuff and we are not there to suggest it.)
More efficient public services needs a whole blog post, but ultimately I disagree with you – it means exactly what is says. The Tories (unlike us) promised to ring-fence the NHS funding and that is what is happening. I have no problem with the public purse paying private companies to implement public services; it is the best of both worlds in my opinion (but again, another blog post…) But in summary, more efficient does not mean cutting, that’s where you have to say cutting (and we do). Some public services do have to be cut, because the country has a huge structural deficit. Only Respect and the Green Party disagree with that analysis.
Finally, lies damn lies and statistics. The polls said that 4 in 10 lib dem voters said that they opposed the coalition. Less than half, Dr. Singh, is not most! It is a lot though, and the party needs to draw more of a distinction between the Lib Dem bits of the coalition and the Tory bits – at the moment they are still trying to defend all of it, which won’t work.
Joe, Manpreet,
Personally, I’d have been more concerned by any deal with Labour: I disagree with the Tories on plenty of policy issues, but my problems with Labour are more moral in nature (torture, internment) and I’m not sure how I could’ve reconciled myself to Lib Dems sitting in cabinet with the Labour ministers who had overseen such things. The Lib Dems have always been primarily a party of civil liberties and political reform; we’re getting these things from the coalition, whereas we couldn’t have done a deal with Labour without having to compromise on these core values.
On spending cuts, I reckon voters have a touch of ‘big number fatigue’ and don’t fully appreciate the situation we’re in. I was discussing the £150bn deficit with my dad a few weeks ago. He said, ‘but can’t we pay it off over a few years?’ – I had to clarify that £150bn isn’t the outstanding debt we owe, it’s the extra amount we’re adding to the debt just in 2010…
To illustrate – the amount we’re borrowing this year is equivalent to the NHS budget for this year PLUS the defence budget for this year: http://www.wheredoesmymoneygo.org/dashboard/#/uk-bubble-chart/focus=TOTAL&year=2009-2010. It would’ve been irresponsible and not-at-all-progressive to leave that alone until we hit a fiscal crisis and had to start making the massive cuts they’re making in Ireland, Greece and much of Eastern Europe at the moment.
I’m thankful the Lib Dems have people like Huhne and Cable who understand how big the big numbers are. Vince argued well during the election that the key question isn’t ‘when’ to cut but ‘how’ to cut, given that none of the parties (us included) had fully figured out where to get £150bn from. I was a little disappointed though that we agreed to ring-fence the NHS – it’s the second biggest area of spending, if we’re not cutting there then we’re having to squeeze schools/welfare/libraries by a lot more. But we have 57 MPs and the Tories have 302, and I guess you have to compromise on some things…
Yes, that’s the “structural” part. It really is huge, I still can’t understand quite how Labour got into that position. Was it falling tax revenues after the recession hit? I didn’t think it had got that bad…
But anyway, all three “big” parties were going to have to cut massively once the election was over, and said so. Darling also recently said he would have had to raise VAT too.
‘Structural’ is the part of the deficit that still exists when we’re out of recession (as opposed to the ‘cylical’ part), so shouldn’t be a result of falling revenues. In practice though, it partly would be because the financial sector made up a decent chunk of tax receipts and it looks like we’re moving towards a structurally smaller and less profitable financial sector in the future.
Structural deficit is a valid concept but not necessarily that helpful as a measurable number – estimating it means estimating the economic cycle first, which you can do but which starts to sound a bit like Gordon Brown’s fiscal rules… Better just to start by recognising the size of the total deficit and the need to start closing it.